On April 24, 2014, Brazil’s President, Dilma Rousseff, signed Marco Civil Da Internet, a civil-rights based framework for the Internet which Brazilian activists have long fought. Dubbed the “Internet Constitution,” the law seeks to reinforce the protection of fundamental freedoms in the digital age. The law was developed through a participatory process, but not without getting caught in the traditional horse-trading of the legislative process, which resulted in several concessions. One of the most damaging concessions, fiercely opposed by digital rights activists, was a data retention mandate that compels the collection and storage of connections logs of any innocent individual.

In comments yesterday during a cybersecurity conference at the New America Foundation, the Director of the NSA, Admiral Mike Rogers faced vocal criticism from the tech community (including cryptography expert Bruce Schneier and Yahoo CISO Alex Stamos). The criticism focused on the Obama administration's insistence that it should have access to everyone's encrypted communications via a backdoor, sometimes called a "golden key." Security experts caution that such a magic key, usable only by the "good guys" is—like magic—not actually possible.

The mainstream media has paid a lot more attention to abuse and harassment on Twitter lately, including a recent story by Lindy West on This American Life about her experience confronting an especially vitriolic troll. She isn’t alone—and it appears that for the company at least, the number of Twitter users speaking out about harassment has reached critical mass. In an internal memo obtained by The Verge earlier this month, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo acknowledged Twitter's troubled history with harassment, writing:

Fighting against the sanctions regime for the right to information and innovation can sometimes feel like a cat and mouse game, but today, citizens of Sudan are like the cats that got the cream. After years of campaigning from Sudanese and international activists alike, a success: The Office of Foreign Assets Controls (OFAC) at the US Department of Treasury has issued a general license for the export of hardware and software “incident to personal communications” to Sudan.